The Verge Practice Part 15

'I think, between them, they may be confused about exactly where they saw him, even which side of the street.

And if there's doubt about where they saw him, there's got to be doubt about who they saw.'

'Then we've got to eliminate that doubt, one way or the other. Which means taking them over there and walking them up and down that street until they stop being confused. And for that they'll need a chaperone, a detective to jog their memories and follow up anything that looks promising.' He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

'Me? Oh . . . well, that would be great, but . . .' She thought bitterly of her meeting with Robert, and explained to Brock, 'I've just agreed to take on the chair of that b.l.o.o.d.y committee I'm on. I've been told it will require a full-time commitment for two or three weeks.'

'What?' Brock looked annoyed. 'Why the h.e.l.l did you do that? You didn't talk to me about it.'

She didn't remind him that he'd suggested it to her earlier. 'I didn't have much choice. It was put to me that I had to agree on the spot. I said they should discuss it with you, but he said it wasn't necessary and that it had already been approved at DAC level.'

Brock's face darkened. 'Who said this?'

'The admin guy who services the committee. Robert.'

'd.a.m.n cheek!' He gave a low growl, like an old bear contemplating an unruly pup. 'Have you got this character's number?'

Kathy handed it to him.

'You might step out of the room, would you, Kathy?

You too, Bren.'

'I've got things to do,' Bren said, getting to his feet.

Kathy closed the door carefully behind her and went out to chat with Dot. After a couple of minutes they stopped in mid-sentence at the sound of Brock's bellowed voice, m.u.f.fled through the heavy door. Dot smiled.

'That's good. I haven't heard him do that for a while. He'll feel much better afterwards. I've been a bit worried lately that his friend might be mellowing him. What do you think?'

His friend. Kathy knew Dot was referring to Suzanne and a.s.sumed that she was about to be pumped. 'I haven't noticed it,' she said tactfully.

'You don't think she's trying to get him to leave the force?'

Kathy was saved from answering by Brock's face at the door. 'All sorted. You've got leave of absence from the committee until next Thursday, when you take up your position there full time. Okay? You'd better get on to the McNeils and persuade them to leave with you tomorrow.'

In the event the McNeils, who jumped at the chance of an expenses-paid trip to Barcelona, couldn't leave until the day after, Sunday. While Dot started booking flights and hotel rooms, Kathy spoke again with Brock.

'Just make sure they understand about the subsistence rate,' Brock said. 'We're not paying for their b.l.o.o.d.y bar bills.' Then he added, 'Maybe you should get Leon to go with you.' He said it diffidently, and Kathy wasn't sure if it was a serious suggestion or just a probe.

'He's up to his ears in an a.s.signment for his uni course.

I doubt if he could afford the time.'

'Ah yes.'

'To be honest, it'll probably be a relief for both of us for me to get out of the way for a few days. The flat's a bit crowded since he moved his computer and books in.' The words came out without thought, and it was only when they were spoken that Kathy wondered with a small shock whether she really would be relieved to leave him.

'It's not a big flat, is it? Must be a bit tight for two.'

'Yes. We're thinking about finding somewhere bigger,' Kathy said, puzzling over Brock's tone, as if he were looking at the question from a completely different point of view, one which Kathy wasn't aware of. She decided to change the subject. 'On my way back from seeing Charlotte this afternoon, I stopped at a supermarket and had my car broken into. They took my briefcase, among other things, with the transcript of Clarke's interview.'

'Would anyone be able to identify him?'

'I don't think so. I didn't have the cover sheet, with the names.'

'Better send a report to the local boys, make sure they take it seriously. Was there much damage?'

'The side window was smashed. I'll get it fixed while I'm away.'

Brock nodded. 'Keep your eyes open over there. You never know, someone may have missed something. That's really why I want you to go. You speak some Spanish, don't you?'

'Very little. I started learning it last year.'

'I wish I was going too.' Brock looked regretfully around his office, at the files piled on his desk and the table by the window and spilling over the floor. 'Maybe if you find something you'll have to call me over.'

'I'll do my best.' Kathy grinned and headed for the door.

13.

Kathy accepted the small plastic container of orange juice and stretched her legs as far as she could under the seat in front. The other two seats in the row beside her were occupied by the McNeils, who were discussing something offered in the in-flight magazine. DI Tony Heron and DS Linda Moffat were several rows ahead, having checked in together before Kathy and the McNeils had arrived at the airport. In fact it now seemed to Kathy, although she hadn't noticed anything previously, that Tony and Linda might have something going between them, or else were taking advantage of the trip to get something started. She had seemed positively flirtatious towards her Fraud Squad colleague when they had all eventually met up, while he had miraculously shed his funereal aspect and was transformed in a lightweight bomber jacket and navy T-shirt, and even, Kathy suspected, a touch of gel in his hair. Linda, too, was dressed for leisure rather than work, with white cotton slacks, a bright orange top, espadrilles and a pair of dark gla.s.ses propped optimistically on top of her head. The McNeils had also come in their Mediterranean holiday gear and Kathy, who had packed on the basis that this was a serious business trip, felt, in her black suit, as if she'd turned up at the wrong party.

But that didn't matter. She tilted the seat back, tuned the headphones to a jazz channel and closed her eyes. This was an unlooked-for break, a welcome change from the routine and familiar. Leon could take over the whole flat while he finished his a.s.signment, and she wouldn't have to feel guilty about making a noise or spilling things on his precious papers, as she had with Madelaine Verge's romesco sauce on the Friday night when she'd told him about the trip. The coincidence of the Spanish food and the visit to Barcelona had made Kathy feel awkward, as if he might think she had been secretly planning to go away without him, but he had been pleased for her, and, as expected, turned down her suggestion that he come along.

'Next time,' he had said, and set about wiping the sauce from his textbook with paper towels. He had a sad air about him, which Kathy put down to a touch of the martyrs.

A steward offered drinks. Audrey McNeil and Kathy both asked for gla.s.ses of wine, Peter McNeil a scotch.

Down the aisle Kathy saw Tony and Linda being handed gla.s.ses of champagne, and she smiled.

Peter had his Barcelona guidebook open and he and his wife began to give Kathy a briefing on the city. The hotel where they would be staying, on Linda's recommendation, was very conveniently located, they explained. Just off the Placa de Catalunya, it was not far from the Pa.s.seig de Gracia, where they thought they had seen Charles Verge, and only a short taxi, bus or metro ride to the Palau de Justicia, if that was where Kathy was heading. And from the point of view of sightseeing, it was also very handy to La Rambla and the Gothic Quarter. Peter explained all this with the complacent superiority of the seasoned traveller, interrupted from time to time by his wife's chirpy elaborations, delivered very fast before Peter could cut her off.

The original plan had been for the McNeils to stay just one night, flying home again on the Monday evening after spending the morning with Kathy on the Pa.s.seig de Gracia, but they had arranged to extend their stay by another day- princ.i.p.ally, it transpired, to allow Audrey to meet her internet bridge partner on the Tuesday morning. 'We've arranged to meet at a cafe opposite the cathedral. I have to brandish my copy of Fifty Favourite Bridge Problems.' She reached into her handbag to show Kathy the book. 'I'm really looking forward to it. It's so strange to meet her in the flesh after getting to know her so well as my partner in cybers.p.a.ce.' She said the last word with relish, perhaps to make some point with her husband, who snorted indulgently and took a pull at his whisky. 'Fine building, the cathedral,' he said.

'Yes, Audrey showed me your photos,' Kathy replied.

'Oh no, that was Gaudi's church, the Sagrada Familia,' Audrey corrected her with a smile and an unspoken undertone, do get it right, dear, so that Kathy felt obliged to repeat it.

'The Sagrada Familia, right.'

'The cathedral is in the Gothic Quarter,' Peter said, 'not far from our hotel.' He pointed it out on the street map. 'It was started in 1298, but wasn't finished until 1913, to the plans of the original French architect. That's a construction period of six hundred and fifteen years. And our clients tell us we're too slow!' He had a good chuckle at this.

'Peter wanted to be an architect originally, didn't you, dear?'

Her husband's nose screwed up, in disapproval, Kathy thought, as if Audrey had betrayed some shameful weakness on his part. 'I suggested the idea to my father, who told me not to be daft. "Architects are all poofters in yellow ties," he said. Well, maybe they did wear yellow ties in those days, I don't know, but anyway, I took his advice and became an engineer, like him.'

'I always wondered about your father's s.e.xuality,' Audrey said thoughtfully.

For a moment Kathy thought there might be a small domestic, but the prospect of the trip seemed to have mellowed Peter, who let the comment pa.s.s.

The plane descended over a brown landscape, and Kathy had the first inkling that they were coming to a place that had had a very different summer from their own, long and hot and dry.

Linda had said that 'Jeez', as she called Lieutenant Jesus Mozas, would most probably meet them in the arrivals hall, but when they reached it there was no sign of him, and after hanging around for ten minutes they decided to take two taxis into the city. When they stepped out of the building they were momentarily stunned by dazzling sunlight and heat, and as they drove down the motorway towards the city, Kathy had a sense of disconnection from the autumnal reality they had left behind.

She was impressed with Linda's choice of hotel when they arrived. An elaborately uniformed man hurried across the footpath to collect their bags, and the reception area was cool and impressively furnished with what looked like antique pieces. When the second taxi arrived, Linda was handed a note-from Jeez, she announced-apologising for not meeting them and saying that he and Captain Alvarez would come to the hotel for them at nine the next morning.

'That's too bad,' Linda smirked in Tony's direction.

'And you were hoping we could get down to work right away.' From the way Tony grinned back, this was clearly a private joke.

Kathy's room had a little balcony overlooking the street, one end of which ran into the wide Placa de Catalunya, in which she could make out numbers of pedestrians promenading now that the afternoon heat was dissipating. After a shower, she went down to meet the others in the foyer. They walked out to the Placa and from there into La Rambla, the tree-lined pedestrian avenue leading down to the port. The place was thronged with evening strollers now, sedately eyeing each other and the various attractions along the way. Mime artists lined one side of the route like statues, motionless until a coin was thrown into their pot, when they would jerk into life, bowing or gesticulating in character to their patron. There was Julius Caesar in full uniform, sprayed from head to toe in silver paint, and further along a terracotta-coloured Sitting Bull, and General MacArthur, complete with corncob pipe, in khaki.

Linda and Tony walked a few paces ahead of the others, at first turning back from time to time to point something out, but soon absorbed in their own conversation. They reached a stall with caged birds and she made a face of mock annoyance at some remark of his and punched him on the upper arm, then pulled him closer to her to examine the cages.

'They work together a lot, do they?' Audrey asked Kathy cautiously.

'They've been working on this case for a few months now, I suppose. Seem to get on well, don't they?'

Audrey gave a little smile. 'The spell of foreign travel.

I used to discourage Peter from going away without me, though I'm sure there's no need now.'

Kathy glanced back at Peter, who had been distracted by a tarot reader sitting beneath one of the broad trees that lined the avenue, telling the fortune of an old man.

'Are you married, dear?'

'No.'

'Ah well. Plenty of time.' Kathy felt herself being scrutinised. 'Maybe you'll meet a nice Spaniard while we're here.

They like blondes, I'm told.'

'Like Charles Verge's mother. She b.u.mped into a Spaniard on the London tube and that was that. She came back to Barcelona with him and had Charles. I dare say they used to stroll along here fifty years ago.'

'Is she still alive?'

'Yes.'

'Poor woman. To think this tragedy was lying in wait for them all this time.' They walked a little way in silence, then Audrey McNeil added, 'I do hope you aren't expecting too much from us, Kathy. I mean, bringing us here will probably turn out to have been a complete waste of time.'

'Don't worry, they won't ask for the airfares back,' Kathy said, and they had a laugh, but all the same, she understood the woman's sense of being there under false pretences because she felt exactly the same. If anything came of the trip it would almost certainly be due to Linda and Tony.

They continued down the Rambla to the Columbus monument, and beyond that onto the pedestrian boardwalk and across to the new waterfront Maremagnum, where Linda chose a small restaurant for them to eat at.

She ordered plates of tapas and a couple of bottles of cava and they sat and watched the daylight dying on the water and the families taking a last turn of the quay before heading for home.

After breakfast the following morning, they gathered in the foyer to wait for the two officers of the CGP. Peter McNeil pa.s.sed the time studying the city map, Audrey some postcards from the hotel desk, and Tony and Linda each other.

The two Spaniards arrived promptly in separate cars. They wore plain clothes, Captain Alvarez in a sober suit, Lieutenant 'Jeez' Mozas in a leather jacket and jeans. Linda and Jeez greeted each other like old buddies, while Alvarez, whose expression was as tightly controlled as the little moustache drawn like a ruled ink line on his upper lip, stood back, shaking hands formally when introduced by Linda to the others. Kathy had the distinct impression that he was displeased by their visit, and especially by the McNeils. After the introductions he asked the couple in slow, stilted English if they would please leave the police officers to discuss matters among themselves for a few minutes. Obviously impressed by the man's gravity, they quickly got to their feet and left. The others sat in a circle in the lobby's armchairs, surrounded by the suitcases of departing guests, and spoke together quietly.

Jeez, whose English was more fluent and colloquial than his colleague's, led the discussion. 'Okay, the captain suggests that Linda and Tony and I go meet some guys in our commercial section who can help with your questions.

We have an appointment at eleven with the manager of the bank. Captain Alvarez will accompany you, Kathy. You have anything special in mind?'

Kathy addressed herself to Alvarez, trying to gauge his reaction as she spoke. It wasn't easy, as he kept his face expressionless. 'I wondered if we could borrow one of your people to stand in as Charles Verge. One point seven metres, seventy kilograms, age about fifty, straight black hair, clean shaven . . .'

'We know what he looks like,' Alvarez said drily.

'Of course. Wearing a black leather jacket, black trousers and shoes.'

Alvarez glanced at Jeez and gave a barely perceptible nod.

'Not a problem,' Jeez said. 'Give us an hour?'

'Ideally, I'd like to walk them down the street at around ten-thirty, at the same time on the same day of the week as when they think they saw him.'

'What are you wanting from these people, exactly?'

Alvarez asked.

'There seems to be a discrepancy in their recollections of what they saw. We just want to be quite certain.'

The captain looked puzzled. Linda began to translate Kathy's words, but he cut her off. 'After such a long time?

You have made a mistake?' His eyes narrowed accusingly.

'We sent photographs, plans.'

'They were very helpful. But my chief wanted them to come in person.'

Alvarez shook his head slowly, whether at the waste of his time or the incompetence of the British police Kathy wasn't sure, then he said something very fast and low to his lieutenant in what Linda later said was not Spanish but Catalan. Jeez nodded. 'Captain Alvarez will return for you and the English couple at ten-fifteen.'

'I understand the street isn't far away. We could walk up and meet him there.'

Again Alvarez said something in Catalan and Jeez translated. 'Captain Alvarez will pick you up here, at the hotel, at ten-fifteen exactly.'

'Whatever you say.'

An hour later, the captain was precisely on time. He arrived in a patrol car, followed closely by a taxi carrying a single pa.s.senger in a black leather jacket. Kathy and the McNeils bundled into the back of the patrol car that swept off into the Placa de Catalunya, circling it to its far corner where the broad boulevard of the Pa.s.seig de Gracia began. After six blocks it pulled over and Alvarez got out, followed by the others.

'This is the place,' he said, gesturing towards the building in front of them.